A Nightmare on Elm Street, Part 2: Freddy's Revenge Reviews

The original 'A Nightmare on Elm Street' is still to me one of the scariest and best horror films there is, as well as a truly great film in its own right and introduced us to one of the genre's most iconic villains in Freddy Krueger. It is always difficult to do a sequel that lives up to a film as good as 'A Nightmare on Elm Street' let alone one to be on the same level.

'A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge' is not to me the dreadful film as reputed, but, while its attempts to do something different is admirable, it should have been much better than it turned out to be. It is very difficult to not feel disappointed when you inevitably compare 'A Nightmare on Elm Street' to its first sequel and find that the drop in quality is so significant and hard to ignore. Whether 'Freddy's Revenge' is the worst of the series is debatable, to me and many others it is one of the weaker ones.

'Freddy's Revenge' is not a complete waste of time. It starts off very promisingly, with the bus scene is thrillingly unsettling. Easily the film's scariest moment and the scene one remembers the most. Robert Englund is still very freaky and shows why Freddy is so iconic as a villain, he may not be quite as terrifying but the material isn't as strong here and he is still highly effective.

It's not a bad-looking film, there is a slickness to it and there are some nightmarish effects. There are some eerie moments, though none of the rest of the film lives up to the bus scene, and some amusing dark humour. The music is suitably haunting.

However, there are also a fair share of problems. The scares don't come enough, and while there are effective ones there are also just as many that are perfunctory and pretty tame by 'A Nightmare on Elm Street' series standards. Credit is due for trying to do something different and there are parts that do intrigue. A tighter pace and less pedestrian direction would have made the execution better, as well as trying to do less and focus more on the quality of the scares and how the story is told.

Jesse is such a dull damp squib of a character who lacks a quick-thinking or logical brain let alone any kind of presence. The one-note expressionless acting of Mark Patton accentuates this. The rest of the cast are nowhere near as bad, but when it comes to the acting the only one to properly rise above the material is Englund. Lastly, the ending is a slap in the face and really undoes Freddy's character, he would never do what he does at the end and it doesn't make sense for him to do it.

Overall, not that bad but could have been much better. 5/10 Bethany Cox

The original 'A Nightmare on Elm Street' is still to me one of the scariest and best horror films there is, as well as a truly great film in its own right and introduced us to one of the genre's most iconic villains in Freddy Krueger. It is always difficult to do a sequel that lives up to a film as good as 'A Nightmare on Elm Street' let alone one to be on the same level.

'A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge' is not to me the dreadful film as reputed, but, while its attempts to do something different is admirable, it should have been much better than it turned out to be. It is very difficult to not feel disappointed when you inevitably compare 'A Nightmare on Elm Street' to its first sequel and find that the drop in quality is so significant and hard to ignore. Whether 'Freddy's Revenge' is the worst of the series is debatable, to me and many others it is one of the weaker ones.

'Freddy's Revenge' is not a complete waste of time. It starts off very promisingly, with the bus scene is thrillingly unsettling. Easily the film's scariest moment and the scene one remembers the most. Robert Englund is still very freaky and shows why Freddy is so iconic as a villain, he may not be quite as terrifying but the material isn't as strong here and he is still highly effective.

It's not a bad-looking film, there is a slickness to it and there are some nightmarish effects. There are some eerie moments, though none of the rest of the film lives up to the bus scene, and some amusing dark humour. The music is suitably haunting.

However, there are also a fair share of problems. The scares don't come enough, and while there are effective ones there are also just as many that are perfunctory and pretty tame by 'A Nightmare on Elm Street' series standards. Credit is due for trying to do something different and there are parts that do intrigue. A tighter pace and less pedestrian direction would have made the execution better, as well as trying to do less and focus more on the quality of the scares and how the story is told.

Jesse is such a dull damp squib of a character who lacks a quick-thinking or logical brain let alone any kind of presence. The one-note expressionless acting of Mark Patton accentuates this. The rest of the cast are nowhere near as bad, but when it comes to the acting the only one to properly rise above the material is Englund. Lastly, the ending is a slap in the face and really undoes Freddy's character, he would never do what he does at the end and it doesn't make sense for him to do it.

Overall, not that bad but could have been much better. 5/10 Bethany Cox

Ah, Nightmare On Elm Street. The franchise that has made us all afraid to sleep at night and introduced people to the concept of a killer who can kill people in their dreams in the form of Mr Freddy Krueger, of course Freddy became so popular that merchandise of the character was made and he got his own tv show in the form of Freddy's Nightmares. I think it's time I talked about the second movie Freddy's Revenge. In the franchise in general this one is often dubbed the 'homoerotic' Elm Street movie because of the supposed subtext which probably wasn't intentional, but the lead actor is gay in real life so maybe it was...I don't know, originally they didn't want Robert Englund back as Freddy and were considering getting someone else but they brought Robert Englund back and he reprised the role in this and all of the others up until Freddy VS Jason. I like a lot of things about this, mainly the idea of Freddy possessing someone and controlling them into killing others while under his control, and also the scene of Freddy coming out of the main character's body....is one impressive sequence. I'd like to see that being used in an Elm Street fanfic myself.


The only problem is that I think how Freddy goes out is a bit weak, I mean...the power of love does it, really? Not a good demise for a killer like Freddy if you ask me.


This definitely handled the monstrous transformation as a sort of metaphor better than My Demon Lover.

In the franchise in general this one is often dubbed the 'homoerotic' Elm Street movie because of the supposed subtext which probably wasn't intentional, but the lead actor is gay in real life so maybe it was...I don't know, originally they didn't want Robert Englund back as Freddy and were considering getting someone else but they brought Robert Englund back and he reprised the role in this and all of the others up until Freddy VS Jason. I like a lot of things about this, mainly the idea of Freddy possessing someone and controlling them into killing others while under his control, and also the scene of Freddy coming out of the main character's body....is one impressive sequence.

This definitely handled the monstrous transformation as a sort of metaphor better than My Demon Lover.

Mention the second ELM STREET film to a movie geek and they’ll probably look ponderous before exclaiming ‘oh yeah, the gay one!”. The reputation is totally deserved as well, but that doesn’t make it a bad film.
A failure to provide a reasonable rationale for the actions of your main antagonist however does a good job of making it a bad film. Every horror franchise seems to have a film which breaks away from the norm and uses the thematics of the series to tell a unique, non-connected, story.

HALLOWEEN 3 completely breaks away from the story of Michael Myers, FRIDAY THE 13TH:A NEW BEGINNING has a fake Jason rampage, every HELLRAISER film after the 4th uses the Cenobites as a background element of the story. In the same way FREDDY’S REVENGE turns the series, albeit briefly, into an attempt at body horror. Freddy as a villain is kind of staggeringly inert throughout the film, slowly taking over the body of main character Jesse throughout the course of the film.

This slow transformation means that if you’re not that interested in Jesse as a character then you’re going to be mightily bored. I’m personally of the opinion that Jesse and his ‘friends’ are an interesting, engaging bunch of kids. Jesse’s relationship with his girlfriend Lisa and the antagonistic friendship he has with Ron Grady actually feel really well realised and Jesse is a diverting, if slightly whiny and creepy, lead. The problem with the film is that it focuses too much on the teenage life of these three characters. Also it’s a horror film with THREE characters. Of these three characters only one of them is actually a victim. Whilst I’m not advocating mass murder it seems odd that the film seems to actually seek to be reductive in terms of establishing characters.

The subtext to the film is interesting, particularly with the casting of Mark Patton (who had outed himself prior to starring in the film), as it’s easy to interpret the possession by Freddy as being a metaphor for Jesse’s latent homosexuality. Scenes in the film like Jesse being confronted by his kinky Gym Teacher, in full leather gear, at a gay bar and the fact the final act of the film is kicked off by Jesse being unable to make love to his girlfriend and rushing to his male friend Ron for solace seem to accentuate the problem. It’s a troublesome reading because it implies that Jesse’s latent homosexuality is destructive and that the ‘good’ ending is Lisa convincing him to abandon it for her.

Getting away from subtext Freddy is handled very oddly in the film. In terms of tone he’s perhaps nastier and seedier than he was in the original and there’s a certain inconsistency to his powers and abilities. Kruger now has power over fire, can possess places even when people aren’t awake and has organic finger knives. It’s all fan boy bullshit, but it’s so wildly inconsistent from his other appearances that it feels like Freddy has been shoehorned into another story. Kruger’s motivation also seems odd, there’s no reason for him to use Jesse as an avatar unless he doesn’t have the ability to enter dreams anymore. It feels like either this is an early draft of an ELM STREET film where Kruger has murdered all of the Elm Street kids or it’s a script for another movie retrofitted for canon. It doesn’t stop Freddy being vicious and his rampage at the end of the film (whilst kind of clumsy looking) is utterly brutal and oddly iconic, Freddy addressing the teenagers with a wall of flames behind is striking to say the least.

In terms of visual design the film is very flat looking, but it’s horror elements are really well done. Jesse’s transformation sequences are amazingly effective and certain throwaway elements (like a couple of dogs with child faces guarding Kruger at the end) are utterly nightmarish. However the fact the other films seemingly overlook the very existence of this movie seems to suggest that it’s not really viewed as being part of the overall series. When you consider that films 1,3,4, and 5 all follow the same continuity it seems odd that no mention is ever made to the film again.

As it is the film feels confused as an Elm Street film but has some great central performances, fine work from Englund, and is genuinely horrific.

Obviously, since  'Nightmare on Elm street' was a success at the box-office, they quickly came up with a sequel. Since I really liked the first installment, I was quite eager to see this sequel but it turned out to be a disappointment. Apparently, it was an even bigger success at the box-office but it has been rightfully criticized ever since its release. Indeed, pretty much everything going from the acting, the directing and the story was seriously average. Above all, they drastically changed the concept with some poor results. First of all, even though the main character of the previous movie did survive, they didn't bring her back which was rather surprising and, instead, they focused on the new people living in the same house but it wasn't in fact a really bad idea. However, this time, they brought a new twist as Freddy Krueger was able to take over this boy so he could commit his murders but this idea had really nothing to do with the original concept. Above all, Krueger was this time even able to kill his victims when they weren't even sleeping at all which completely clashed with the identity of this killer. It was especially weird during the pool scene when he started to kill a whole bunch of teenagers. Anyway, to conclude,  even though it was maybe not the worst installment in this franchise, it was still pretty weak and I don't think it is really worth a look.